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since I was a kid.” He seemed to be looking at her funny. “Why, do you?”
    â€œSometimes.”
    â€œWhat religion?”
    She felt self-conscious. “Well, it’s a friend’s church, I don’t know what religion. It’s very spiritual. Gospel music where people get more involved, not where you just pray or listen to a sermon. It’s good to put on your best clothes . . .” She trailed off in case she sounded stupid. The musicians were packing up their instruments, and people were leaving. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
    â€œI have a half-sister in Texas,” he said, with a pull on his drink. “My parents split up when I was a kid, and I grew up in California. What about you?”
    â€œI’ve got two brothers and a sister. Well, half-brothers and a half-sister. Everyone has a different father. The other fathers are in Jamaica; mine’s in Brooklyn.”
    â€œDo you see him much?”
    â€œNo, he never writes or anything. I went to visit him when I was fourteen, and he never even came to get me at the airport. I had to find my own way to his place.”
    â€œDon’t take this personally, but your father sounds like an asshole.”
    Marva sipped her rum and Coke. “Well, I guess he’s got a new life. He didn’t really know who I was or anything since he left when I was little. I wrote a couple of times after that, but then I stopped. My mother doesn’t talk to him, so I don’t know if he’s still there, or even if he’s alive.”
    â€œWasn’t he paying child support?”
    â€œNo, nothing.”
    When the staff was clearing out the remaining customers, she drank off her cocktail and stood up without knowing what was supposed to happen next. He didn’t seem to have a clue either.

6
    L ofton was waiting by the streetcar stop with her outside the subway at Queen when she suddenly hailed a taxi. He wasn’t sure if she was bailing on him until she moved over to make room, and he climbed in beside her. Her assertion that she lived ten minutes from downtown was more than wishful thinking, it was a downright lie unless she meant by helicopter.
    Her basement apartment was in a rundown Victorian manor in Parkdale near Sunnyside Beach. He went down the stairs with her at the side of the house, waited while she unlocked the door, and then looked for her refrigerator. As soon as he had a beer in his hand, he embraced her and they kissed against the sink.
    Later, during sex, her expression grew disturbingly remote. When he leaned in on one elbow to kiss her, she turned her head away, her face a mask of savage illogic after the passion he’d aroused while eating her. “I wish we weren’t doing this,” she said.
    So that’s how it was. But she was wet and her nipples were still stiff. Despite the alcohol, Lofton was tense and insufficiently confident of his hard-on in the prophylactic after the booze to indulge this twist in her mood; he tried to focus on the act itself, how far along he’d come, the geometry of her spread legs and the grip of her pussy as he held her, giving her a few thrusts he hoped she’d feel tomorrow. He stroked her firm breast and slid a hand down her back, turning her slightly to grip a cheek and insert a fingertip into her tight asshole.
    His ejaculation partially eclipsed the insult and hinted at a new phase in his life, post-divorce, with or without this stripper. He lay beside her and tried to relish his flawed triumph, wondering if he should get up and leave or give her a chance to explain herself. He wiped away some sweat as he straightened his bandanna, then reached over the side of her bed for his beer. He was still wearing his socks. “So, what’d you mean—you ‘wish we weren’t doing this’?”
    She looked at him without emotion. “I meant so soon, the first night.”
    â€œDidn’t you feel all